Need help with new tractorbeam

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 8:56 pm

I am trying to make a new tractorbeam:
- I want it to be used on an enemy ship with working engines.
- Enemy ship can be towed away.

I can't get the tractorbeam to target ships with working engines and that's why I have a few questions:
1- Is it possible for a tractorbeam to work like I want it to or is it hard coded ?
2- Is it possible to fire 2 Ordnances with one weapon or 2 weapons with one button ?
3- Can a holdingbeam be changed to tow ships ?

and while I'm at it, I also have a few questions that  have nothing to do with tractorbeams:
4- What will happen if there is no more space for a new button? (I mean in the row with special abilities like cloaking)
5- How does a construction ship loses his build-options if boarded? What files are responsible for this ? (I mean if the borg capture a federation construction ship it can't build any federation facilities)

I hope my questions aren't stupid and if anyone could answer them I would be really grateful.

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 9:25 pm

Hiya, unfortunately this is going to be a very negatively themed post...

1 - no; hardcoded I'm afraid
2 - no; using an utritiumBeam to launch a utritiumBall you can get multiple weapons to fire, but they won't be under your control (so cannot be used like you would desire here)
3 - no
4 - Fleet Operations can handle 31 buttons at once, any more are not displayed
5 - buildXavailibility = 2 and buildablebyownerraceonly = 1 determine if the build items are available to other factions

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 10:00 pm

for tractoring an enemy ship with working engines you could look at combat tractor beam on the chargh. it doesn't let you tow the ship away to your bedroom, but it will hold the ship still at least. it also won't stop your auto targeted firing on it.

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 10:14 pm

That's just a HoldingBeam ordnance - the effect of not autofiring is determined by a separate command available to all ordnances

[gokuj]

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 11:34 pm

Last edited by gokuj on March 3rd, 2012, 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for the fast and detailed replay.

@Dominus_Noctis
I was already afraid it would be hardcoded, so I guess it's not that big a surprise. Well too bad. 
Still, thanks to your answers 4 + 5 I have still something i can work with, so thank you 

@Myles
Thanks for the idea but I tried to make a improved "combat tractor beam".



Edit:
I tried a few new things and now have 2 beams. One to dissable engines and the other a tractor beam. It's not perfect but works fine.

Now there is just one thing I don't like. I used a "toggleweapon" with an "unibeam" ordnance to disable the engines. But this weapon just fires once and disables engines for a certain amount of seconds. I would like to have the weapon keep a constant beam and while active disable the engines.

Is it possible to have a continuing "unibeam" ?
If not, does anyone have an idea how to make such an engine-disabling weapon ?

posted on March 4th, 2012, 6:11 am

Nope, that's not possible with the UniBeam I'm afraid. However, if you use a HoldingBeam - which disables engines as long as it is on - then you can get the desired effect . So you'd have a HoldingBeam to disable engines and a TractorBeam to tractor it then.

[gokuj]

posted on March 4th, 2012, 9:17 am

Last edited by gokuj on March 4th, 2012, 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have already tried that and I'm afraid that's not possible. The Holdingbeam seems to literally hold the ship at one position. So the Tractorbeam cant tow the ship away.

Well I'm out of ideas so I will keep it the way I have it now. It might not be perfect but with the Unibeam set to 30 seconds disabling engines it's plenty of time to steal a ship.

This really helps to capture construction ships. They often get destroyed if you capture them first and then bring them to your base. Now I simply bring them to my base first and capture them there 

Anyway thanks for the help.

posted on March 4th, 2012, 4:12 pm

Ah yup, seems to be you are correct Learn something new everyday